“It’s a tough decision for a man to become a hairdresser; you get a lot of flack.”
As sweeping as Baz Luhrmann’s epic Australia is the 35 year trajectory of the movie’s hair designer - and Nicole Kidman’s personal hair stylist - WA-born Kerry Warn.
It began when his father, with gruff wisdom, arranged for the 17 year-old Warn to serve a five year apprenticeship at Ernest Grady’s House of Ernest, Perth. That time, and the one day a week learning by repetition at tech school, eventually showcased Warn’s innate talent.
Despite a joking aside regarding chained slavery, Warn credits absolutely the skill and discipline acquired there was preparation for success.
“When you’re a teenager you think you know but you don’t; there’s a lot to learn.” In 1972, exams passed and his fare made by doing the hair of local ‘ladies of the night’ (his mother would turn in her grave but they paid cash), he set off, with £50, for London.
Warn’s first job was with a very ‘commercial’ hair company, Robert Feilding. Aware an Australian guy worked at Elizabeth Arden’s prestigious ‘Red Door’ salon in Bond Street, he inquired if they’d want him. Called in, he created three or four looks on a pretty receptionist and was taken on. New but noticed Warn styled a successful Arden print campaign; spotted by British Vogue, this led to Warn’s first cover, importantly, shot by photographer David Bailey.
Press work followed. A turning point was joining Leonard of Mayfair, who worked out of a grand townhouse behind Grosvenor Square. Teasing was banished; hair here was avant-garde, sometimes coloured - everything from pale pink to magenta - often in a youthful, blow-dried feather cut: Twiggy’s revolutionary look was a Leonard creation.
After 18 months, Arden lured him back: a rare wrong move. A little later a manicurist friend at Molton Brown suggested that was now more his sort of place and, there he learnt a fresh, almost organic approach; hair hand dried, molded curls, no setting lotion, no hair spray. By then Warn was styling regularly for Vogue using every trick he’d mastered. Next, New York – agents, total professionalism and competition - beckoned: “It was like my finishing school”.
As a session stylist Warn turned gypsy. Ad campaigns for cosmetic companies – Clariol, L’Oréal, Lancôme, Max Factor, et al - meant more money but more pressure. All international Vogue titles booked him (Warn has a portfolio over 100 Vogue covers; a dedicated website is about to be launched).
A job on Revenge, a movie being made in Mexico, came up and he reasoned, “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it again”: he went. A year later another was offered, this time on location in Argentina and set in the tango-ing twenties. “I didn’t think I had the skill,” explains Warn but thanks to six months manipulating finger waves for those long ago Perth tutors, period work was second nature.
By the 90s, the relentless back and forth across the Atlantic working editorial and commercial felt like a treadmill. In 1991, again London-based, Warn was approached by John Frieda, who he knew from Leonard, to become creative consultant with the John Frieda House of Experts team and he’s been there ever since - developing product, doing the ads and making presentations to distributors so they see how genuine those products are: a dream job.
Remaining time is spent on movie sets, primarily with Nicole Kidman who he recently styled for a US Vogue cover, shot by Annie Leibovitz, to coincide with the US release of Australia.
For the movie he’s designed the hair on every actor’s head. Warn’s career confirms what’s achievable when parents raise you right, you accept technique as the most important gift given (as is modesty, Warn avoids sounding big-headed) and you set your mind – and obviously everyone’s hair - to it.
See some more hot hair for women.
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